The Politics of Blasphemy

Fake religiosity and the making of a false idol

Utter insanity

A couple of weeks ago, Paula White-Cain, Donald’s so-called personal spiritual advisor and head of the White House faith office he created, gave the following remarks at an Easter event while Donald looked on:

Jesus taught so many lessons through his death, burial and resurrection. He showed us great leadership. Great transformation requires great sacrifice. And Donald, no one has paid the price like you have paid the price. It almost cost you your life. You were betrayed and arrested and falsely accused. Because of his resurrection you rose up. Because he was victorious, you were victorious. And I believe that the lord said to tell you this: because of his victory, you will be victorious in all you put your hand to.

That statement was made during a celebration of the highest of high holy days for Christians. I don’t think “blasphemy” is a strong enough word to describe White-Cain’s comparison of a corrupt heathen like Donald Trump to Christians’ Lord and Savior. And the white evangelical excuse for their support of Donald—that he is but an imperfect vessel anointed by their god to help them achieve their political goals, is wearing thin especially with a snake-oil salesman like White-Cain trying to turn Donald into some kind of Christ-like martyr.

If you want to understand how power sustains itself inside of this movement, not just politically, but psychologically and spiritually, it helps to understand who Paula White-Cain is.

Paula White-Cain should either be in prison for being a snake-oil-selling grifter or in a psych ward, but instead of being a reviled figure who is forced to exist on the periphery, she’s actually a very powerful person in our government. She’s been Donald’s personal spiritual advisor since 2002 when he first saw her on television, because he can spot a world-class grifter when he sees one.

White-Cain built her career preaching the prosperity gospel. And this resonated with Donald because he and his siblings grew up exposed to the teachings of Norman Vincent Peale. My grandfather, Fred, wasn’t a reader, but it was impossible not to know about Peale’s wildly popular best seller, The Power of Positive Thinking. Peale, the pastor of Marble Collegiate Church in midtown Manhattan, was among the first to preach the proto-prosperity gospel, with its superficial message that successful people are successful because god believes they’re better than everybody else. That message—and the ease with which Peale was able to sell it—led us to the likes of Paula White-Cain and Joel Osteen and those other mega church pastors who grift hundreds of millions of dollars from their flocks every year.

Peale, who had a fondness for rich businessmen like my grandfather, wrote:

Being a merchant isn’t getting money. Being a merchant is serving the people.

He was a charlatan, but he was a charlatan whose doctrine proclaimed that you need only self-confidence to prosper in the way God wants you to. That view neatly confirmed what Fred already thought: he was rich because he deserved to be and that appealed enormously to him.

Peale wrote:

Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! . . . A sense of inferiority and inadequacy interferes with the attainment of your hopes, but self-confidence leads to self-realization and successful achievement.

Self-doubt wasn’t part of Fred’s makeup, and he never considered the possibility of his own defeat. Peale’s proto–prosperity gospel also complemented the scarcity mentality my grandfather clung to, even as he got richer and more successful. My grandfather did not subscribe to the belief that “the more you have, the more you can give;” rather he believed “the more you have, the more you have.” Peale’s message supported that belief. Fred conflated financial worth with self-worth, monetary value with human value. The more he had, the better he was. If he gave something to someone else, that person would be worth more and he less.

White-Cain certainly subscribes to that kind of zero-sum selfishness. And all that does is reinforce the megalomania of people like Donald Trump and his dad.

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With White-Cain’s formal government role, she has direct access to Donald. She has participated in a laying on of hands in the Oval Office, and she delivers prayers extolling Donald’s divine virtues as public performance.

She speaks in tongues:

And she performs exorcisms:

For years now, the white evangelical excuse for supporting somebody as irreligious and sinful as Donald has been to say that he’s an imperfect vessel. White-Cain has left that dubious rationale in the rear-view mirror Now we are told saying no to Donald would be like saying no to God. In a prayer delivered during Donald’s first term, White-Cain framed political opposition to Donald using the language of spiritual warfare:

We break every assignment of the enemy against Donald.

White-Cain is one of the chief architects of this madness. She helps perpetuate the notion that wealth and righteousness are equivalent. She conflates political victory with divine mandate, and loyalty to Donald with loyalty to God.

There is, of course, a financial angle here. IRS filings show that in 2024 Paula White Ministries reported approximately $166,000 in total income and paid herself $143,000 in compensation. But that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the $80 million she has raked in through her television ministry. This is the prosperity gospel made literal. She is enriched through donations so she, too, can be the chosen of God.

And that brings us back to Easter week when White-Cain made it clear that the flawed vessel framework was no longer necessary. Why? Because Donald is now a martyr. He’s comparing himself to Jesus Christ—but so are other people. Those people that blasphemous and absurd comparison know exactly what they’re doing. In the process, it’s making them very rich at the expense of the vulnerable and deluded people who listen to them.

And their rhetoric confirms Donald’s own delusions that he is a unique historical figure. It bolsters his dangerous notion not simply that he’s at the center of the universe, but that he is the universe. Donald has no ideology. His belief system, such as it is, is comprised solely of his self-interests and the conclusion he has reached, thanks to his own psychological deformities and the myths people like my grandfather and the Paula White-Cains of the world have perpetuated, that it is he who is the higher power.